Chapter 220
CHARLOTTE-
I watched him go.
Face red. Ears red. Everything red. He ran to his room like someone was after him.
I sighed and fell back against the cushions.
So much for getting him to want me again after last night.
He had left like he could not wait to get away from me.
I was sexually frustrated and embarrassed in equal measure.
Blair and Olivia had been so wrong. He clearly did not care about the outfit. He had stared in a weird way like why would you wear that to a movie. That was all. Not hunger. Not the look from when he was inside of me. Just confusion. Maybe even secondhand embarrassment on my behalf.
Ugh.
How humiliating.
I knew this would have happened. Sex with me was never going to be anything important to Luca.
He probably just did it to stop the arguments between us. One night to shut me up. One night to get it out of the way. Then back to best friends and qualifying.
But I kept remembering it.
How good it had felt to be that close to him. How amazing it was to wake up satisfied and in his arms. To look at all of his marks on my body and know he had left them there.
As far as I knew, the girls he slept with never got love bites. He did not linger. He did not claim. I hoped I was right and was not just wishing for it. The thought thrilled me anyway. That there was something he had done only for me.
I turned the movie off.
I did not care about the horse in it. Not tonight. I could try watching it again another time.
I went to my room, pulled the dress off like it had failed me, and stood under the shower until I felt less stupid.
The water hit the marks and I hissed at the reminder.
I imagined his mouth on me.
His hands.
Proof that last night had happened and it was amazing even if tonight he had treated me like a disaster waiting to happen.
14:36 Mon, Sep 28 JOM
The Hockey Captain’s Unwanted Wife
I hated this.
55 voucher
Why should there even be a stupid rule between us? We were both adults. We had amazing sex. Why could we not do it again? Make it two nights? Three? Until the ache stopped?
I felt like crying into my pillows.
I even wanted to touch myself, and I knew it would not compare. Not to his tongue. Not to his cock stretching me. Not to the way he had told Barcelona to hear me scream.
“Whyyyy,” I groaned at the tile.
Luca had not even waited for the movie to finish.
He had bolted with an excuse about tomorrow, pillow still in front of him like he was trying to hide something.
Fine. If he wanted to ignore what happened. We could play his game.
I slept badly.
Every time I closed my eyes I was back on the wall. The desk. The glass. His forehead against mine when he realized I was a virgin.
The growl when I told him not to pull out. The wet sound of him fucking me after he stopped being careful. I woke twice reaching for a body that was not there.
The next morning was qualifying day.
Saturday.
The hour that decided whether he started at the front or the back.
I looked through the bags from yesterday like they were evidence of a bad idea.
Blair’s voice was still in my head. If you can sit down in it, it’s too long.
I dumped everything on the bed as I tried to find something for today. I wanted to see his eyes pop out with whatever I chose to wear.
I held up a dress. Too much for a race. Too much for cameras.
I tossed it aside and still remembered how his mouth had felt on my breasts while he was inside me.
Next the deep red. Shorter. Worse. I put it against my body in the mirror and heard Olivia laugh.
I tried jeans next. They made my ass pop.
Safe.
Normal.
The girl who stood on the stand and did her job.
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14:36 Mon, Sep 28 JOM
The Mockey Captain’s Unwanted Wife
58 Vouche
Then I remembered his face when he said just one night, still hard, still looking at me like he regretted the words and was going to say them anyway.
I took the jeans off.
I needed something that would make a statement.
The champagne was next. I got it halfway on and saw the marks on my thighs in the mirror. His mouth was there last night. The inside of my legs. I had to sit down on the edge of the bed because the memory hit too fast. Him on his knees. His groan against my pussy.
I ripped it off.
I was not wearing that to qualifying.
Blair’s crop top sat near the bottom of the bag. She had gotten that for me a while back apparently.
It had Luca’s name across the chest. I paired it with the short skirt they had forced into my hands while I was still saying no.
I put them on.
Looked.
Almost took them off.
The skirt showed too much leg. The crop top showed some stomach but not too much.
Together they gave exactly what I was looking for.
I had never worn anything like it to one of his sessions.
I told myself it was support. I almost laughed at the lie.
Support?
It was an outfit that said I want him to look at me the way he did the night he fucked me.
I did my hair next.
Covered what I could of the bites. Concealer on my throat. A little on my collarbone. The ones lower down I could not hide without wearing a turtleneck in this heat, and I was not doing that. I needed the makeup covering them all.
In the mirror I looked like a girl trying. That was okay with me. I wanted to make an impression but only
on Luca.
Marco knocked once. “We leave in twenty.”
“Coming.”
I stood there and almost changed back into jeans.
Then I thought of Luca’s face on the couch.
14:36 Mon, Sep 28 JM.
The Hockey Captain’s Unwanted Wife
Then I thought of him inside me. I wanted to feel that alive again.
Which version was real?
The one that kept running from this, or the man who had claimed me in every inch of this suite?
I kept the skirt. Needed to keep it.
I needed to look like a person who had not spent the night being rejected.
Again.
I grabbed my pass and my bag and did not let myself check his door.
If I checked his door I would knock. If I knocked I would ask why he ran yet again. If I asked why he ran I would hear the same excuse, and I was not sure I could stand there in this skirt and pretend to be okay
with that.
I had to focus.
He would need me to be focused like I always was on race days. There were the little things he trusted me with because I was still his best friend and not the girl he had taken apart in this suite.
Get it together, Charlotte. It was another important day. I had to play the part I’ve played for so many
years.
Downstairs the heat was already waiting.
I could also hear race-week noise. And spot the cameras as well.
I tried to ignore the fact that my body still ached in places I could not mention. Like I had not spent an hour last night watching him stare at a movie he was clearly not watching.
Marco glanced at me once and then politely looked anywhere else.
I ignored that too. I forgot that I would be out in public and Luca wouldn’t be the only person seeing me dressed this way.
Focus.
Today was qualifying.
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Today I would stand where I always stood.
Today I would pretend the night we fucked had never happened, the same way he was pretending nothing had changed between us.
If he did not look at the skirt at all, I would have to find a way to deal with it. Accept that I’d failed again.
14:36 Mon, Sep 28 JM.
Dex Morgan
Dex works to elevate each story with clean writing, emotional balance, and thoughtful flow for readers.